


rhodonite and grief

by theflyjar



Category: EXO (Band), NCT (Band), f(x)
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Crystals, Dementia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Healing Crystals, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 19:16:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17873219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflyjar/pseuds/theflyjar
Summary: They leave the hardest items to last: the photographs, jewellery that has no material value but that is irreplaceable to them, and items kept from Yifan’s childhood.





	rhodonite and grief

**Author's Note:**

> prompt - t49
> 
> this fic is based on the song rhodonite and grief by la dispute - which is also where the title is from.
> 
> ma - cantonese for paternal grandmother  
> aijie - changsha dialect for paternal grandmother  
> diedie - changsha dialect for paternal grandfather

“I’ll drive,” Yixing mutters when they come to where the car is parked.

He leans over to get the keys that are hanging loosely between Yifan’s fingers. There’s no fight in Yifan and he lets the car keys slip through easily, and Yixing looks at his husband for a few moments before stepping forward to squeeze Yifan’s fingers with his own. He unlocks the car doors and gets in, watching how Yifan does so with sluggish movements.

It’s obvious their visit has left Yifan visibly shaken. Yixing thinks he would be too, if he were to see his own mother in that state.

They sit quietly in the car for a while, long enough for the automatic lights to have faded out and left them in the greyish haze of the winter evening. Neither of them speaks. They don’t have to. There are no words that could be said to make the moment any better, there’s no room for hope in that instant. Yixing thinks there will be signs of strength in the days to come because he knows himself and he knows his husband, their resilience as individuals and as a unit is insurmountable.

When it starts to rain, Yixing starts the car and begins to reverse out from the spot Yifan had parked in. He kills the radio when it resounds around the car, filling the space with a pop song that does nothing but spoil in the atmosphere.

It takes them almost forty minutes to drive to Yixing’s mother’s house and when they get there, Yixing’s parents are stood by the edge of the road with three children, two boys and a girl.

“I don’t want them to see her,” Yifan comments, hands trembling at the sight of their children. “I don’t want their final memories with her to be like that. It’s not what any of them deserve, them or her.”

In any other case, Yixing would disagree with Yifan on this. He thinks the children being with their grandmother as she nears death would be the start of their mutual healing, but it’s different now. Yifan’s mother is barely a ghost of what she once was, she’s lost her words and she’s lost so much of herself that even Yixing struggles to comprehend it, and he’s known her for more than thirty years.

But, even if this sickness has been wearing on her for a couple of years now, today was by far their worst encounter with it. Yixing doesn’t resent the moments when she forgets him, even if it does settle an ache in his chest, one he knows he will never be able to shake. Still, nothing hurt more than the moment she seemed to have forgotten Yifan, her only son and the truest love of her life.

That breaks Yixing inside. He can’t imagine forgetting any one of his own children, that was never something he had even considered as a possibility. But the lack of recognition and the confusion Yifan’s mother displayed when Yifan introduced himself, that was enough for Yixing to know that even a parent can lose sight of the child they love. Yixing had watched Yifan’s heart crumble and break, left with only Yixing’s hand in his to anchor him and get him through the motions of the meeting.

What hurts the most is that they knew this was coming, the deterioration had been hastening in both a physical and mental sense. Only, it had never seemed real. At least, not until it happened. And even then, Yixing’s not sure if he really believed it was happening. It may have been unfolding in front of his eyes, but it felt like a screenplay of a script Yixing didn’t know. Only, he was in it too.

“They don’t have to see her,” Yixing hums, taking Yifan’s hand in his own for a moment before exiting the car.

Yixing doesn’t mind that Yifan doesn’t get out of his seat to greet their children, Yixing understands the need Yifan has to retreat and be alone until he’s ready. Instead, Yixing forces a smile onto his lips, crouches down to kiss his youngest son on the cheek, then stands up when he comes to the two older ones, who rise quite a bit taller than the smallest, to greet them.

“How’s  _Ma_?” Qian asks, holding Renjun’s hand to stop him from wandering off. “Any better?”

Yixing keeps the smile he put on, not wanting his children to know the gravity of what has unfolded, “Not today. But the doctors are going to try some new treatments.”

The second statement isn’t a lie and Qian grins back as Yixing, holding as much naivete as Yixing had done at seventeen, too. “I hope they work then!”

“Why don’t you all go and get in the car? I just need to talk to _aijie_ and _diedie_ for a moment, okay?” Shixun takes off for the car immediately, leaving his sister to try and manoeuvre the four-year-old towards his seat that’s fixed into the car.

Yixing’s ready to step forward to help her but she calls, _“Ba,_ it’s fine, I’ve got it,” before he can even move.

“How are things?” His mother reaches out for him as she speaks and Yixing shrugs a little.

“It’s all happening faster than expected…” Yixing wants to curl up in his mother’s arms and remain there. “She couldn’t recognise Yifan today. She remembered that she had a son, but she just didn’t know that it was him, because even when he introduced himself as Yifan, she dismissed it. Said her son’s name is Jiaheng. I think that’s what got him, _and me,_ more than anything else. She couldn’t remember changing his name, his face, or anything about his life. She wouldn’t be able to remember the kids, either, and we don’t know what that will do to them. She’s always been so present in their lives and, like this, it’s as if she’s already gone but she’s physically still here. Shixun and Renjun won’t understand it but Qian will, and I don’t know which is worse.”

“Oh, Xing,” his mother sighs, taking him up in his arms in that way only a parent can. “If there’s anything we can do, let us know and we’ll take the kids for a few hours or something. Even if it’s just to give Yifan a bit of headspace to work with, I’m sure this is such a hard time for him.”

“I guess this just shows that money can’t fix everything,” Yixing’s father remarks. It’s not to be scathing, he’s always rather straightforward and Yixing’s stomach churns at his words.

“Don’t start this now,” Yixing and his mother echo each other, dealing Yixing’s father a look which he surely knows means that he’s stepped too far.

“Now, you should get back home. The children are fed, and Xiao Jun hasn’t had his nap yet, so he should fall asleep in the car. Qianqian has all of their things in her bag and we don’t think they’ve left anything behind.”

Yixing kisses his mother on the cheek, whispering, “Thanks, mama,” in her ear.

“Any time, Xing-ah. Make sure to look after Yifan, he will need you.”

“I know.”

With that, Yixing waves to his parents and gets back into the car, starting the engine and pulling away from the side of the road to start the journey back to their house. They live within the city centre, in a high-rise apartment building, which came with a price tag that made Yixing’s father sweat at the mere sight of.

The children dash off to take the elevator without their parents and Yixing lingers at Yifan’s side. He wants to do something, even just a small gesture, like hold Yifan’s hand but Yifan’s got his phone in one hand and Qian’s bag in the other. It’s only when they’re in the elevator, taking the righthand one when their children took the left, that Yifan shows any real signs of cracking.

Yixing’s got him in his arms within seconds, holding him and caressing the back of Yifan’s head with his thumbs in hopes of bringing him some comfort.

There’s no mistaking that Yifan’s clearly confused, baffled by the entire situation. Like Yixing’s father said, this is something money can’t fix. Both Yifan and Yixing have earnt enough in their lives – more than enough to be able to buy half a dozen of their apartments – but it still hasn’t been enough to ward off everything. There is only so much that can be done with money when it comes to sickness.

If only sickness had manifested in a way that they’d be able to cope with. If she needed a new heart, there would have been more they could do. If she had a cancer, they could pay to have cut and dispel it from her body. If she had a blood disorder, they could manage it, just like they do with Yixing’s. But it’s her mind. Her memory. Her sense of being.

The nurses and doctors say she only has so long before she deteriorates enough that the medication will hardly cover the symptoms. Yixing knows it’s happening already, and he knows that Yifan knows, too.

It’s difficult to watch the person you love lose the most important person to them in real time because it’s no longer a question of if or when, it’s _how soon?_

The children can sense it from Yifan. Or, at least Qian can, given how she takes her father into her arms to hold him for a few minutes whilst Yixing settles Renjun down to sleep on the sofa. Yixing gets the feeling that Qian knows, or has at least made an accurate guess, to which sickness has begun to dull the sharp mind of her _Ma._

Yixing watches how Yifan talks quietly and softly to Qian, trying to ease her pain with small smiles when tears start to form in her eyes. Yixing wants to go to their sides and comfort them, but he knows that moment isn’t for him to intrude on. It’s just for Yifan and Qian, two of the people who know nothing of life without Yifan’s mother. The two of them talk for a while until one of them laughs, which leads to them both laughing, and Yixing thinks that’s the moment hope seeps in.

He leaves where he’s sat beside Renjun to head into the kitchen, where Shixun sits at the breakfast bar with a glass full of orange juice and a face draped in questions.

“What’s wrong with _Ma?”_ It’s not a sad question from the boy, it’s curious but sensitive. He knows something is wrong but doesn’t quite have the understanding Qian does to gauge the seriousness. They’ve never had a death in the family, so Yixing doesn’t quite know what to say.

He doesn’t want to gloss over the severity of the moment, should he convince Shixun that everything’s okay when it evidently is not. Nor does he want to break his own son’s heart with the news that his beloved _Ma_ may be gone soon.

Yixing takes up the seat beside his son, tugging Sehun to his side to pull him into a hug. In the gentlest voice he can muster, Yixing tries to go about phrasing what he can.

“Your _Ma_ is very ill, and it doesn’t seem like she’s going to get better soon.”

“But she will get better?” Shixun asks, putting his glass onto the counter and Yixing takes a moment to work out his answer.

He feels like he shouldn’t be the one to explain this, he doesn’t know if this is something Yifan would want to do himself, but he can’t leave Shixun’s question hanging. Yixing opts for honesty, knowing that Yifan will understand him in some way. He doesn’t use all the words the doctors use. He doesn’t mention the apraxia and stroke-induced aphasia, amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary, he doesn’t talk about loss of mobility and memory. He doesn’t explain the progressive stages, how bodily functions are lost and never recovered. He’s barely confronted those himself.

Instead, he brings himself to tell Shixun: “We don’t think she will.”

 _“Oh.”_ That single word from Shixun is all Yixing needs to hear to know that the gravity of the situation is slowly sinking in and it hurts to be able to do nothing to fix it. “Is she going to die soon?”

“I hope she doesn’t. The doctors are trying all they can.”

Yixing feels like there's nothing he can do to stop the pain. It renders him useless to help his children, his husband, and himself.

 

⚕️

 

Yifan’s mother dies nine weeks later.

The funeral is sombre and quiet and held on a Tuesday. Qian’s tucked into Yifan’s side as she cries for the loss of her grandmother. Yixing’s got Shixun sobbing into his stomach and Renjun in his arms, who Yixing suspects is only crying because everyone else is, but he still comforts both his sons the same. They both need him, and he tries his best to bottle up his own pain for a woman who accepted him as a son from the moment he met her. Yixing wishes he had enough room to tuck his family into his chest and protect them from this pain that grief has beset upon them.

The death wasn’t sudden, but it still tore a hole in each of them, and Yixing doesn’t know how to fix his family.

Life seems to go into a weird phase of stand-still in the next week. The children have time off school at Yixing’s request to give them time to adjust in the comfort of their own home, where they can cry freely and find solace in the only other people who understand.

They go through the motions of a routine and Yixing finds himself picking up the slack for his husband and children whenever they waver. He doesn’t nag at Qian to tidy her room, nor does he scold Shixun when he catches him playing games or reading after bedtime has been called. Yixing washes and irons Yifan’s clothes, cooks all the meals, and keeps their home as tidy as he can, when grief strikes its hardest.

Yifan’s left as the executor of his mother’s will, which is sorted a week and a half after the funeral, when the children are back at school and staying at Yixing’s parents’ home. Yifan and Yixing sort through Yifan’s mother’s things, setting aside sentimental trinkets for the children to have. It doesn’t take too long for Yifan to cry, overwhelmed by the fact his mother is gone from his side, and Yixing wipes his tears away and kisses his cheeks.

“We don’t have to do this all at once,” Yixing reminds him. “We can take our time and do this when you’re ready.”

The reality is, Yixing doesn’t think Yifan will ever be ready for this, and he can sense Yifan’s awareness of that. So, they trudge on through, only stopping when Yifan needs Yixing by his side to kiss him and bring him steadfast love and comfort.

They order food to Yifan’s mother’s house and stay in her spare room. Yifan sleeps restlessly, like he has done most nights since that first day Yifan was forgotten by his mother, and Yixing barely lets himself sleep. Just in case.

They leave the hardest items to last: the photographs, jewellery that has no material value but that is irreplaceable to them, and items kept from Yifan’s childhood. All of those things fit into three medium sized boxes lined with tissue paper and bubble wrap, the keepsakes they’re unwilling to give away. Yixing carries them down to the car, leaving Yifan to have his moment alone with his mother’s apartment.

When Yixing gets back up to the floor Yifan’s mother resided on, he watches Yifan from the hallway as Yifan sits on his mother’s bed and her pillow in his hands. It’s been a year since she lived there, with the rent coming out of Yifan and Yixing’s joint account, in some futile hope she’d recover and seek the independence she always fought to keep. Part of Yixing is glad this wasn’t Yifan’s childhood home, he doesn’t know how difficult it would have been for Yifan to part with it.

But the memories that are there aren’t easy to let go of either.

It was the first place they’d brought Qian after adopting her, even before taking it to what is now their family home. Yifan’s mother had moved to Changsha almost immediately after Yifan and Yixing had told her they planned on adopting, leaving her teaching post in Beijing to be close to her son’s family. Yixing can almost see the way Yifan’s mother had picked up Qian in her arms and sobbed at the sight of her first grandchild. Whilst Qian wasn’t related by blood to them, the instant love shown for Qian by Yifan’s mother almost rivalled that of both Yifan and Yixing’s. It didn’t matter that Qian had spent two years without the solid surrounding of a family because she found it there, in her grandmother’s arms.

The moments Shixun and Renjun met their new grandmother too play over in Yixing’s head. Shixun hadn’t wanted to leave Yifan’s arms and could only be pried out with the promise of sugar cookies. Then, a few years after that when Renjun, as a tiny, babbling baby, was placed into Yifan’s mother’s arms, with Qian hovering protectively nearby.

And, suddenly, Yixing thinks this is no easier than if this had been Yifan’s childhood home. The walls that surround them are the rooms that marked the beginning of their family and was a milestone for each addition afterwards. Yixing isn’t sure if he wants to say goodbye to the home of those memories yet.

Let alone the ones he remembers of sitting in the kitchen, opposite Yifan’s mother, where he truly got to know her and be loved by her. The hours they spent, as if like mother and son, talking through life and nurturing a mutual fondness that stretched beyond what Yixing could have hoped to have with her.

The loss hits him all at once then, the ability to keep up a façade of strength up for his husband and children fractures, cracks, and breaks. But, even as the tears fall, Yixing does it silently. He doesn’t want to impede on Yifan’s grief, he doesn’t wish to make it about himself, not when he has his own mother on the other end of a phone still. He knows death and loss is not a competition, but he doesn’t want Yifan to feel obligated to comfort him, just because he’s the one that’s crying now.

He moves off to the bathroom and locks the door, filling the sink’s basin with cold water to wash his face with in an attempt to recompose himself. He struggles with it, but he succeeds, unlocking the door gently and creeping to where Yifan is.

He sits beside his husband and takes him up in his arms, cuddling for a moment before Yifan pulls back and asks, “I think I’m ready to go, are you?”

Yixing wants to say no but if Yifan is ready to let go, he supposes he can be too.

They lock the apartment door and make their way down to the car. Yifan drives and they go to Yixing’s parents’ place, with Yixing messaging ahead to say they’re on their way, and they’re all there waiting by the side of the road for Yifan to pull over. At the mere sight of his own children, Yixing feels the ability to breathe take over his body.

He smiles and kisses them, clipping Renjun in before sitting in the car next to Yifan.

 

⚕️

 

When out to buy groceries for dinner, Yixing takes his time walking between the market stalls and past the crystal windows of stores. He searches through, settling on a rabbit toy each for the children; one in brown, one in black, one in white. He buys new photo frames, all of which can be filled with photographs from Yifan’s mother’s house. He buys all of Yifan’s favourite foods, he buys flowers to place into Yifan’s mother’s old vases, and Promethazine to help Yifan sleep.

Instead of heading straight back to his car. Yixing walks through some of the side streets, searching for something he’s not sure he’ll even find. He only stops when he comes across one shop he had never noticed before, one that’s drenched in the smell of burning incense and totted up with things unfamiliar to Yixing.

For a moment, he steps in and is overwhelmed.

The old woman behind the counter greets him before she potters around, busy with other things and leaving Yixing to browse.

Floor to ceiling, there are crystals of varying size and colour. They’re all labelled with a small, discoloured tag.

“Those ones are for healing,” the woman’s voice calls without looking at him. “They can help with anything, from pulled muscles to emotional scarring.”

Yixing hesitates before asking, “What about grief?”

“They can do that, too. Why don’t I get you a booklet on emotional healing? Then you can pick out what you wish.”

For a moment, Yixing considers passing up her offer but he doesn’t, he murmurs a thank you and awaits her return when she disappears into the back section of the store. She has an old, worn leather book in her hands when she emerges again and offers it up to Yixing, who places his other shopping bags on the floor to to it in both hands and begin flicking through it.

It takes him twenty minutes to understand what the words are telling him and know which combination he would like to have.

“Do you have any rose quartz and rhodonite?” Yixing asks her and she nods.

“In what form? Stones, ornaments or jewellery?”

“Any,” Yixing finds himself saying.

He approaches the counter when the woman pulls a plethora of items out to show him. There’s a mix of bracelets and necklaces, candle holders, small and smooth pebble stones, and large jagged chunks of rock. They’re all pink, the woman points out that the rose quartz is the paler stone and is all about heart healing, about healing emotional wounds and forging self-love. She shows that rhodonite is the pink rock streaked with black, that it’s a symbol of rescuing relationships and letting go of fears.

They do not explicitly apply to grief, but the woman weaves it together for him. She explains how loss can often mean a lacking in love for oneself and an unwillingness to heal emotional wounds through fear of forgetting. Side by side, these two stones are based in love, for not fearing love and not fearing to let go, to soothe someone into healing.

Yixing feels tears well up in his eyes, fingers trembling as he skims them over the tops of some of the jewellery and lifts up some of the stones.

He figures out what he would like to buy, and the woman tots up his total at the cash register, thanking Yixing with a deep bow and a wish of good luck for his grief.

When he gets home, he puts the rose quartz and rhodonite beneath the beds of all his children, and his own he shares with Yifan. He places a photograph of Yifan’s mother on the fridge, held up by a magnet Qian painted when she was six. He ficed candles into their new carved cystal ornaments.

“What’s with all the stones?” Yifan asks, holding Renjun in his arms, even though they both agreed they’d stop spoiling the boy by carrying him around. Yixing says nothing about that, letting his husband and son indulge in one another’s company.

Yixing shrugs, “To help.”

“With what?” Yifan asks, shifting Renjun on his hip.

“Healing, I guess.”

Yifan’s gaze is pensive but he lets it go, giving Yixing a small smile that he thinks is Yifan cosseting him and his ideas. He moves off with Renjun to get the boy a banana and begin peeling it for him, whilst Yixing puts more candles in the stone holders and places them well out of Renjun’s reach.

He gives Qian her rabbit toy, with two necklaces around their necks, and does the same for both the boys. Though, he keeps Renjun’s on top of the cabinet, so he doesn’t try to eat the stones, thinking it’s a boiled sweet.

Yifan says nothing when Yixing puts two of the necklaces around his and Yifan’s neck, when they’re getting ready for bed.

“Try to keep this on when you can, I’m not entirely sure how any of this works,” Yixing tells his husband, kissing soundly on the mouth once the necklace is clipped into place.

“I don’t quite know what any of this means, but thank you,” Yifan whispers, taking his Promethazine to help him sleep before he goes back to working the next day. “And, I’ll keep it on if it helps you feel better.”

Yixing doesn’t know if the gifts and stones are all pointless, but he feels better for doing something to ease the pain. And he hopes it works whilst Yifan’s sleeping tablets kick in, sending his husband off into the first full night’s sleep in months.

 

⚕️

 

It’s months down the line, when it’s been a year since her passing, that Yifan brings up death again. It had been a subject they’d all danced around and not quite wanted to confront. It’s when the children are at Yixing’s parents’ again when the subject is broached. The photograph of Yifan’s mother still hangs on the fridge, they still go through the motions of routine, day by day. None of them have forgotten her, but they all wish they didn’t remember the loss. At least, that’s what Yixing thinks.

The night passes. Both Yifan and Yixing have worked late, eating dinner just before eleven pm and crawling into bed at midnight. They lay side by side, looking at each other, with Yixing playing with the rose quartz on Yifan’s necklace.

“If I start to lose everything, like she did, I hope we don’t suffer.”

Yixing hums, drawing closer to Yifan to find some comfort from the topic he wishes Yifan didn’t broach.

“I don’t know if it’d be too much to ask, but I’d half hope you’d find a way to make it end faster than it did for her. I don’t want it to ever get to that point where I don’t recognise you or the kids, because for me that already means my end.”

“Can we please not talk about this? I don’t want to think about you dying.” Yixing isn’t afraid to tell Yifan his fears, they’ve shared them without words and Yixing knows Yifan’s fears match his own. But hearing them is different. It’s real. Immovable.

“I know, but I just need you to know. If it comes to it, it’s okay to let me go. It’s what I’d want and it’s what I hope you’d want for me.”

Yixing understands, he’s seen the same suffering as Yifan, but even thinking about it has his eyes bloating with tears that spill quietly over his cheeks.

“You’ve given me the strength to fix myself and I hope I’ve given you the same, but I don’t want the end of my life to be living to die. I’d rather it be quick, so you always remember me as I am now, as the person who knows you inside and out and who can promise to love you forever.”

Yixing nods and kisses his husband, as deeply as he did on their wedding day, and he feels it then, grief moving into acceptance. Grief for the woman they loved and lost, and grief of the light Yifan and Yixing lost within themselves at her passing.

“I’d want the same,” Yixing confesses. “But, that’s a long while away from now.”

Yifan still takes Promethazine to sleep sometimes, near family occasions and birthdays, but Yixing knows it will get better. It has to. It’s healing.


End file.
